


There is Knowledge

by depizan



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, How To Jedi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2018-09-09 08:43:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8884441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/depizan/pseuds/depizan
Summary: Novani, first Force Sensitive in her family, learns to be a Jedi and find her way as a "guardian of peace" in a galaxy that all too rarely knows peace.  Or justice.  Or anything else a Jedi is meant to stand for.  For the galaxy is a dangerous and complicated place, and the lessons of the Jedi Temple aren't always easy to apply.





	1. The Other Side

**Author's Note:**

> In game, Novani is my Jedi Consular, and fic!verse Novani more or less maintains that skill set, but I felt that the adventures of an ordinary Jedi would be more interesting to write.

Novani knelt by the man she’d just knocked unconscious. Practicality said she should have killed him. Compassion said he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jedi teaching said… _What_ was _a Jedi to do in these circumstances?_

She wished Master Cereb were with her. She wished she were back on Tython. She wished she were back on Anaxes, helping with the family business. Anywhere but deep in Hutt Space, trying to free a shipment of kidnapped Republic citizens before a Hutt finished selling them to the Empire.

She knew diplomacy and healing, not stealth and subterfuge. A Jedi might need to be skilled at both, but she hardly felt ready. The civilian clothing she wore felt wrong, and she missed the familiar weight of her lightsaber at her hip. She rarely drew it, but it gave her some comfort, especially in a place so steeped in misery and hate.

She had reacted too hastily, and now she had an unconscious man who was not in any way part of their plan. And she’d used the Force to do it.

_There is no emotion, there is peace._ She took a deep breath, steadying herself. _There is no ignorance, there is knowledge._ There were no innocents here, save those she and Master Cereb had come to free. An armed man wandering around the compound was either in the Hutt’s employ or the Empire’s.

_There is no passion, there is serenity._ She’d let the atmosphere affect her, lost sight of her training. _There is no chaos, there is harmony._ She would rectify her mistake and acquire transportation, just as Master Cereb sent her to do. _There is no death, there is the Force._

Innocent or not, she couldn’t kill the man in cold blood. That was wrong on every level, Jedi or otherwise. She couldn’t leave him there; he was bound to realize it was a Jedi who had attacked him. Unless he assumed the rock had been thrown by an unseen colleague. Or perhaps he wouldn’t remember; he had a concussion.

Yes. She would trust in the Force, trust that he wouldn’t remember, wouldn’t wake in time to interfere with the rescue. She could even use the Force to ensure that.

She hesitated, her hand over his forehead. Was that right? To use the Force that way? The man was young, not more than a few years older than herself; with proper medical care, there shouldn’t be any permanent harm. _What would Master Cereb do?_

The man stirred, squinting up at her.

She pulled her hand back. She couldn’t use the Force against him now; his awareness made it wrong. _I shouldn’t have hesitated!_ She couldn’t panic again. _There is no emotion, there is peace._

He was laying on his rifle; nothing she could do about that, not now. She frantically felt through his pockets, tossing aside a hold out blaster and a small vibroblade. And his comlink, though it would only take a shout for him to raise the alarm.

“What…?” He clutched at his head, apparently still too dazed to do anything more.

“Stay quiet, I won’t harm you,” Novani said, her voice calm, non-threatening. _There is no ignorance, there is knowledge._ She could see a clear path now.

“You hit me.” It wasn’t quite a question.

“Let me help you.” She reached for him, putting just a little of the Force behind the soothing words. “The guard in the garage should have a medkit.” She helped him up, using a flick of the Force to unfasten his rifle strap and drop the weapon silently to the ground. “There, just let me help you.”

“I don’t…”

She felt his sudden flash of alarm as he pulled away from her.

“I don’t think that would be healthy.” He stumbled against the wall of the narrow side alley, his hand still pressed to the back of his head. “You’re… not my concern. I saw nothing.” He made a vague gesture. “Accident. Clearly.”

The words were almost believable, but his accent was slipping. Novani reached out with the Force, to sense his next move, to sense for anyone who might be close enough to aid him. The weapons she had tossed away could be hers in an instant, but he would have to dive for them. She doubted he could. Had she missed something when she searched him?

_There is no passion, there is serenity._ She could neither fear nor hate him. She had to stay focused; she had made too many mistakes already. 

“You’re here for the slaves,” she said calmly.

“Slaves?” He seemed to be struggling to focus on her.

Confusion, uncertainty, wariness. Not what she expected to sense, but she had no experience with Imperials.

“The people you came here to buy.” It wasn’t easy to say something so terrible with calm detachment.

“You came to free them.”

Understanding, she expected, but not what felt strangely like approval. Had he misunderstood and thought she was freeing Hutt slaves? Would that somehow help the Empire? She couldn’t imagine how.

“I won’t interfere,” he continued. “Good luck.”

She sensed no deception, nothing that should have been there. _He can’t have understood_. Her healer training was tugging at her to heal the damage she’d done to him. A nagging urgency reminded her she was running out of time for her part of the mission.

She couldn’t believe him. But every part of her recoiled from the alternatives. Jedi did _not_ strike down people who were no threat to them. He was offering a peaceful solution.

“If you have a medpack, perhaps…I could help?”

Novani stared at him. The Empire ran on slavery. Hutt Space ran on slavery. Even if he hadn’t understood correctly, he was there, in Hutt Space, for _some_ reason. And freeing slaves couldn’t be that reason.

“That… that is kind of you,” she said. And her scattered thoughts found harmony. “I’m sorry.” She gently pulled his hand away, reaching out with the Force to heal the wound, and the concussion.

“How…?”

She sensed his wary anxiety and reached out again with the Force. “Sleep.” For a healer it was simple enough. Though it was not usually used on someone upright and larger than the healer.

She staggered for a moment, then, steadying herself and her burden with the Force, eased him to the ground and propped him gently against the wall. It wasn’t impossible that a person might choose this out of the way corridor for a nap.

She pulled his weapons and com to her with the Force. _Would you really have helped me?_ It almost seemed possible. She tucked the hold-out blaster, com, and vibroblade back in his pockets and left the rifle beside him on the khal grass.

The Empire was evil, untrustworthy, and dangerous, but did that mean all Imperials were the same? Did one exception mean anything? One uncertain exception.

She chased the questions away and went to procure transportation. She could ask Master Cereb later.

 

 

Kyrian was roused from his nap by a kick.

“The _mighty_ Gorlo is robbed by _Jedi_ and I find you _sleeping_!” The large man looming over him shouted. “Nem'ro told Gorlo you were _useful!_ ”

For a moment nothing made sense, then Kyrian remembered the young woman – barely that – and their rather odd encounter. He touched the back of his head, feeling dried blood, but no injury. _Jedi?_ That explained everything. Except why he was still alive.

The man kicked him again. “Are you listening to me?”

“Yes. I apologize.” Kyrian got slowly to his feet. “I don’t remember coming out here.”

“Damned _Jedi_ ,” the man swore. “Stole a _whole_ shipment of slaves! Gorlo is gonna feed _somebody_ to the blood worms, and it ain’t gonna be _me_.”

“Shipment of slaves?” Kyrian asked. “How could I possibly protect something I didn’t know you had?”

“Useless _outsider_!” The man stomped away.

Kyrian rubbed his bruised hip. _A Jedi?_ She’d knocked him out. She could easily have killed him. Instead, she’d seemed unsure what to do with him. He brushed at the dried blood in his hair. His education was seeming more and more suspect.


	2. Many Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Novani is still unsettled by her meeting with an odd Imperial, and by Hutta in general.

A bead of condensation grew on the nearly untouched glass of ale, merged with a neighboring droplet, and ran down to join the small puddle forming on the cantina table. Novani sighed. The air was hot and humid and the dingy cantina, like the rest of Hutta, had a suffocating aura of desperation.

The prisoners she and Master Cereb had freed were safely on their way back to the Republic, and she had thought that she and Master Cereb, too, would be returning. Back to Tython and the comforting familiarity of the Jedi Temple. She couldn’t focus here.

It wasn’t the tinny music the cantina blared over crackling speakers, or the raised voices from a game of some sort in the far corner, or even that there were so many people packed into such a small space. Those were the sort of distractions she’d learned to ignore. It was the underlying misery of the place.

This was not what she’d imagined the life of a Jedi to be. In the stories, Jedi strode boldly into places of danger, stared down deadly enemies - vanquishing them with wise words or a quick lightsaber stroke, healed the injured and frightened, and left the place cleansed of darkness. In reality, Jedi disguised themselves as ordinary people, lurked in seedy cantinas and Hutt palaces, rescued prisoners by stealth and misdirection, and knew that the cells they emptied would be filled again in a week.

Even the enemies and those in need of a Jedi’s aid were hopelessly mixed. At least half the cantina’s patrons showed signs of spice addiction, and most were quick to anger and violence, but… were they truly at fault? Had they chosen this path? Or had they been lured there from some distant slum by Hutt promises and the hope of a better life?

Everything since they had left Tython called into question all Novani knew. Or thought she knew.

_There is no ignorance, there is knowledge._

But the knowledge of Tython did her no good in Hutt space. Everything was mixed up, good and evil, dark and light, all blended together into a horrible dingy gray.

“You seem troubled,” Master Cereb said.

Novani looked up. She had been too distracted by her own thoughts to sense his approach.

The tall Miraluka _looked_ like a Jedi, even in ordinary clothing. He exuded an air of calm control and peace. As if simply by being there, he could right the galaxy’s wrongs.

She was small, and round, and had only kept the tiny table to herself by actively using the Force to encourage everyone to look beyond her, or around her. The Force had been out of its mind to choose _her_ to be the first Force Sensitive in her family’s history.

“How can we ever do enough?” Novani asked. “There’s so much wrong here.” _Everything is wrong here,_ she wanted to say.

“No _one_ can do enough,” he said. “A single padawan - even a single master - cannot fix the entire galaxy. You face the problems in front of you and solve the ones you can.”

“How do I know which ones I can solve? How do I know _how_ to solve them?” She looked down at the circles she’d absently drawn in the condensation. “At the Temple it seemed so simple, so clear. Master, what if I get it _wrong_?” _What if I already have?_

Master Cereb put a fatherly hand on her shoulder. “Novani, you will get many things wrong in life. What matters is to correct those mistakes, and learn from them. But today, you have helped do a great good. The men and women we rescued will soon be home. And tomorrow, we will look for information that may prevent others lives from being disrupted as theirs were.”

She nodded, trying to let his calm words sweep away her questions and uncertainties. _What about the people in this cantina? What about the slaves the Empire takes from_ here _? The ones not stolen from Coruscant? What about…_

 _There is no emotion, there is peace._ The Code always helped her focus. _There is no ignorance, there is knowledge._

“Master, there was an Imperial there. Pretending not to be one.” She frowned. “He… he offered to help me.”

“How strange,” Master Cereb said.

“I left him there,” she continued. “Alive. Was that the right thing to do?” _What would_ you _have done?_ She wasn’t sure she wanted the answer.

“It was _a_ right thing to do,” Master Cereb said at last. “I will meditate on your unusual encounter. As should you. Clear your mind of doubts, young one. We still have much to do here.”


	3. Jedi Work

The Hutt’s compound was a wash of anger and fear when Novani and Master Cereb returned that evening. The jittery guards were easily distracted and it took only the lightest touch of the Force to keep them unnoticed once inside. Master Cereb had been right; no one expected them to return.

They had accomplished their mission: freed the kidnapped Coruscanti and seen them safely off world. But they had remained. Master Cereb wanted to retrieve what information Gorlo might have on the Imperials buying kidnapped Republic citizens as slaves.

The Treaty of Coruscant meant there was little they could do with that information. A complaint through diplomatic channels would end in the Empire blaming the Hutts and the underworld and advising the Republic to protect its citizens better. Even Novani knew that.

But if there was enough to arrest Black Sun members, or whoever was doing the Hutt’s dirty work on Coruscant, they might prevent future kidnappings for a time.

Novani stayed close to Master Cereb. The compound had been unpleasant enough on their previous visit, but the wash of emotions had become almost painful. She didn’t dare blot it out. Each spark of anxiety, humiliation, or simmering anger was a person who might notice they didn’t belong.

_How can anyone live like this?_ Novani wondered. _Why don’t they all leave?_ It was a foolish question; people who worked for Hutts did so because they _liked_ to be surrounded by misery, or because they had no choice.

A servant skittered past them, disappearing down the poorly lit hall. Novani almost reached out to her, to… to… She didn’t know what.

_There is no emotion, there is peace._ But there wasn’t peace. Not on Nal Hutta.

“Master?” Novani pitched her voice low. “Isn’t there more we can do? So many people here are afraid.”

“Hutts take their anger out on those around them.” Master Cereb’s voice was soft, barely audible. “Gorlo has much to be angry about. The Empire expects him to make good on his deal.”

She didn’t ask how he knew. His hearing was better than any human’s, even without the aid of the Force, and she knew that picking up surface thoughts came easily to him. “More slaves?”

“We are here for a reason. And it may see an end to Gorlo’s trade with the Empire.”

She followed him around the edges of the crowd and up the wide ramp that rose above the main audience hall. The room below was a sea of people and tables, all facing Gorlo’s dais. Colored lights from the musical entertainment gave the impression of a much happier gathering than she sensed.

Novani spotted the Imperial contingent with ease: a table near the dais, all human, military in bearing despite their civilian clothing, radiating irritation and disgust. The man she’d encountered earlier did not appear to be among them.

A gentle nudge in the Force reminded her of the mission. She caught up to Master Cereb at the top of the ramp.

They waited a moment in the shadowed hall, reaching out with the Force to make sure the office was unoccupied and no one was watching from the shadows.

Master Cereb placed a hand on Novani’s shoulder. “I will not be long.” He vanished into the office.

Novani pulled the Force tighter around herself, sinking deeper into the shadows. A few people passed along the hallway, heading down the ramp without noticing her. Below, the Hutt and the Imperials seethed, and the rest of the gathering tried to pretend all was well.

With nothing to do but wait and watch, Novani studied the anxious crowd. There was anticipation as well, and some who were eager for a fight, or who eyed the ill-disguised Imperials with loathing. A scarce few held themselves apart, apparently unconcerned with Gorlo’s mood or the Imperials – mercenaries not directly under Gorlo’s power, Novani supposed.

It was a room full of criminal scum, dancing attendance on a petty crime lord who had innocent people kidnapped and sold to the Empire. If Gorlo took his anger out on them, it would be no loss to the galaxy.

It was also a room full of frightened, desperate people eager to appease the man who held their lives in his hands.

_There is no ignorance, there is knowledge._ The Code offered no comfort. It was a comforting ignorance to assume that everyone in the room below was guilty of something, was less innocent than the Coruscanti she had helped rescue.

She thought of the frightened servant who’d passed them, of the musicians and servers below. If she and Master Cereb succeeded at protecting Coruscant, would Gorlo sell them to the Empire instead?

_There is no passion, there is serenity._ Was that what accepting a different wrong was?

Novani saw the other Imperial then, the one she’d met, if she could call it that. He sat against the wall on the opposite side of the room from the table of Imperials, his coat collar turned up, his hands wrapped around a glass, blending into the crowd far, far better than anyone at the other table.

She sensed the same unease that permeated the room in him. Also a dislike of the Hutt, a certain curiosity…suspicion…interest in the table of Imperials, and a mix of disappointment and frustration. His emotions were muted by exhaustion, alcohol, and pain. His torso was stiff with bruises and, though the poor lighting masked it, another marked the side of his face.

He’d been beaten. For failing to stop her? As a convenient scapegoat? Someone too important to kill, but not too important to hurt?

His bizarre offer hung in the air again: _I could help you._ Had she made a mistake?

_No._ He was Imperial. He felt no fear of the other Imperials and his interest in them wasn’t hostile. Though there was also no sense that he longed to join them. Master Cereb’s suggestion came back to her. Imperial Intelligence.

Was the information Master Cereb was retrieving altered? Wrong? Would harming Gorlo help the Empire in some way?

_There is no chaos, there is harmony._ She pushed aside the questions, regained focus. And her heart sank. She had stared at him too long; that ripple in the Force that alerted even the most Force blind to scrutiny had alerted him.

He had turned just enough to spot her. His gaze was neutral, calm, as if he were merely contemplating the architecture, but she could sense his surprise. And a tangle of curiosity, disbelief, anxiety, and relief. All he had to do was point, announce her presence.

She took a step backwards. Into a solid, warm body. She let out a distinctly un-Jedi squeak.

“Easy, young one,” Master Cereb said. Calm spread through the Force.

“I’m sorry, master,” she whispered. “He saw me.”

“The Imperial?”

“Yes.”

No outcry came from the audience hall. No surge of anger and triumph in the Force. The band continued to play.

Novani tried to match her master’s serene calm. His emotions were still, imperceptible, but she knew his mind was as open as hers, as ready for the first flicker of alarm through the Force. The seconds stretched as they stood hidden in the shadows.

“We must remain until the new prisoners arrive,” Master Cereb said at last. “They will be on guard then, but from threats without, not within.”

“I know he saw me. I felt it.”

“And we will provide reassurance that we have done all we came to do. A small scuff on the windowsill, a slight adjustment of the view screen. They will pass unnoticed if he says nothing and will prove his warning too late if he does give one.”

_And earn him more pain._ Novani thought of the guards they’d so easily slipped past, and the guards they would be assumed to have slipped past again. _They guard a Hutt, they have been party to terrible things._

The Jedi protected the innocent, not the guilty. She cleared her mind of questions, of the frightened servant’s face. _There is no emotion, there is peace._

 

 

 

The Force was a tranquil lake, cool and calm, the smooth surface hiding powerful depths. Novani let her mind float in it, her awareness spreading beyond the emotional turmoil of the Hutt palace, beyond the polluted swamps of Nal Hutta, into the quiet of space. In the darkness between the stars, there were no questions, no emotions, no suffering she had to ignore.

She and Master Cereb had hidden in Gorlo’s compound for three days, stealing food from the kitchens – careful only to take what would not be easily missed – and finding a new disused room, closet, or cellar to sleep in each night.

Novani longed for a real bed and a bath. Master Cereb had his stubble to grow, though there was still something too…collected about him to pass for one of the Hutt’s actual employees or visitors, so they continued to rely on the Force to shield them from discovery.

The new prisoners would arrive soon. The field where Gorlo’s animal handlers exercised his stable of beasts had been cleared for the ship to land. They were taking no chances transporting the cargo of lives from the spaceport.

But once they had landed, once all focus was on the compound walls, then Novani and Master Cereb would slip out to the building where the prisoners would be held and shatter the wall they had spent the last several days weakening with the Force. The damage was microscopic, unnoticeable. And the wall was thick, an apparently impenetrable barrier between human cargo and the entry to Gorlo’s beast pens.

Where a large cargo skiff was parked.

The Imperials were restless, their confidence in Gorlo waning. Their ship was still at the spaceport, and they had no plan to move it before their cargo arrived. Nor was their room for a second ship in the field. They would not be able to interfere in the rescue.

Nor would Gorlo. Not successfully. His anxiety over the new shipment already had his guards working over-long shifts, patrolling the walls for a threat that was already inside them.

Novani wondered how many of the guards would flee rather than face his wrath. She had barely slept after the previous evening’s screaming and horrible laughter from the audience hall. Neither she nor Master Cereb had wanted to investigate. Even the Imperials had been revolted.

Fear prickled at the edges of her meditation. The rescue would leave chaos in its wake. And a furious Hutt. She could only hope that Gorlo’s other staff would flee if the guards did. They didn’t deserve some terrible punishment, or to be offered as replacements for another lost cargo.

_There is no chaos, there is harmony._ The lake of stars washed away the distant fear and her own anxiety. _All is the will of the Force._ She drew in strength, refreshing her mind and body. She would need energy for the hours ahead.

She let herself float back to the surface of the lake, back to the small, grimy chamber on Hutta, leaving her lingering doubts behind in the darkness.


	4. As the Force Wills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Novani and Master Cereb finish their mission to Hutta.

Novani pressed herself into a corner of the crowded ship’s lounge and told herself she wasn’t hiding. Jedi did not hide.

_The cargo skiff sped toward the compound wall, too heavy to gain altitude. A few blaster bolts hissed past or burnt out in the muddy ground. A voice screamed to stop shooting. Another to aim for the Jedi. Master Cereb had his lightsaber out. The wall loomed closer, blotting out the swamps, blotting out the sky._

It was the Force, not the repulsorfield, that had launched the skiff over the wall. She’d seen a guard’s face, horrified, as the skiff screamed past him. Then a great wave of muddy water as they’d plowed back to earth.

It was the Force that had kept everyone – Jedi, rescued Coruscanti, terrified servants – aboard. The skiff had bounced twice, skewed sideways down the gravel road, the steering wheel twisting out of her grasp. She’d clutched at it with hands and mind, straightened the craft out, and sped away down the road toward Qedriga and the space port.

“Novani?” Master Cereb offered her a mug of something warm and slightly sweet smelling.

She took it. “I’m sorry, master. I nearly ruined everything.”

_The servant, the same one she’d seen before, walking grimly down the ill-lit corridor as Novani left her hiding place. Master Cereb had already gone, taking advantage of the rush of activity as the ship landed to move into position from the other side of the compound. The woman’s bleak, pinched look. The coincidence of seeing her again. It had seemed like a sign._

“You made an…incautious choice,” Master Cereb said. He inclined his head toward the mix of Coruscanti and former servants. “I do not know that I would say it was a wrong one.”

_Novani gently raised a sculpted bowl from a niche in the wall, spun it once, and returned it, her hands never leaving her sides. The woman’s eyes grew wide. Now she believed. She would meet them by the skiff._

And she had. Along with a dozen other desperate and terrified men and women.

With the kidnapped people from Coruscant, it was almost more than the skiff could bear, the weight above the repulsorfield’s intended limits. It would have been close, anyway. Gorlo had somehow arranged for an even larger shipment the second time.

“I wanted to do more,” Novani said. “There was so much suffering.”

The guards, the servants who remained, any guests besides the Imperials… she couldn’t think about them. Gorlo would be beyond furious.

“We cannot solve all ills,” Master Cereb reminded her.

She laced her hands around the mug, the scented steam warming her face. “Is it always like this? Will everything we do to help some hurt others?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

_There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is…_ She wanted ignorance. She had never wanted ignorance more. _How can you have peace_ and _knowledge?_

“You cannot let that keep you from acting,” Master Cereb said. “It is still better to help some.”

She nodded. _There is no passion, there is serenity._ The words felt empty. She began again: _There is no emotion, there is peace._

The words had always seemed so comforting, so grounding. In the Jedi Temple, it was easy to banish emotion, to trust in the Force. All of the dangers, all of the uncertainty was safely outside.

“Rest, young one,” Master Cereb advised. “All will seem clearer then. And do not forget what we have done.”

Novani looked around at the people they had freed. They were huddled in small groups, staying close to those they knew or had come to know. Shaken, some still afraid, but there was relief as well, and hope. It was not a simple victory, but it was a victory.

Master Cereb was right. She needed to focus on those they had saved, not those they had not.

 


End file.
